Livigno is a special
place. It is a high valley in a
distant
corner of the Italian Alps. The valley drains into the basin of Engadin
and Inn in Austria. Livigno has had special tax and customs priveleges
since Napoleonic times. The town has a frontier ambience. There are
only
some 4700 inhabitants. Livigno feels like if it is built around one
long
street. Most shops sell tax-free merchandise and from the number of
shops
it seems a lot of people go there to buy perfume, cigarettes and
chocolate.A large part of the valley has been drowned by an
enormous
water reservoire, an articficial lake.

Livigno is betting on
mountain biking. There are
quite
a few designated MTB-trails. The tourist office supplies leaflets for
guidance,
and also have a website with MTB information, Livigno
by Bike.There are some extraordinary bike shops. In fact the bikes
shops had a very impressive stock, one had five or six Merlin titanium
frames, the very latest and most expensive cannondales, etc. I did not
see a better supplied shop even in San Francisco.It
may have something to do with the tax priveleges.

The camp site is well
above the main market, and is
friendly
and by Italian standards cheap.

The weather was
against us. It is not any fun
to
cycle above 2000 metres when it is raining. But we managed to have one
long fine ride and a short ride in the vicinity of Livigno.

The most
commonly used trail is upp to the
Val Alpisella
Pass (2268) One goes out of town along the lake‘s southern shore, small
road, and then up first on fire road then on tight technically
demanding
switchbacks to the Val Alpisella Pass 2268. A splendid ride.
There
were many mountain bikers.

From the Pass one
can continue down on fire
road down
to Lago San Giacomo another lake. Then, one can go on fire roads across
the watershed of the Ferecle Pass (1952) in a wide arid valley. A rough
gravel road continues down the valley. When one approaches the Livigno
Lake one crosses a bridge and then continues on beautiful singltrack
that
goes on a high partly exposed traverse some 40 or 50 m above the lake.
In a few spots slides have gone down on the pass so one has to carry
the
bike.

We turned around
here when we came to a spot
where we
would have had to carry the bikes on steep scree 100 metres or so. It
was
not the difficulty in per se that made us turn around. The hour was
getting
late and we were not sure the weather would remain fine. As we were
sitting
there having a break two swiss girls came down from Alpe del
Gallo.

A circuit around
Buffalora would be a splendid
day though
one would have to start early.

As it were the
weather changed on us.
Returning to Livgno
we were hit by a heavy thunder storm and ice cold torrential rain
with some hail.

Would we go back to
Livigno? Yes, absolutely, it is
very
mountain bike oriented place, lots of bike trails, and a friendly
attitude.
Had the weather been better we would definitely had stayed longer.